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Index of Subjects
Index of Subjects --Apple-Mail-325-257138360 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Lois, As Andy Moir wrote: > Then you might want to visit this page to learn who is really behind > the petition project. > http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/skeptic- > organizations.html > Andy Moir The Union of Concerned Scientists points out that this "petition" (around since 1998) was privately funded by: George Marshall Institute This conservative think tank shifted its focus from Star Wars to climate change in the late 1980s. In 1989, the Marshall Institute released a report claiming that "cyclical variations in the intensity of the sun would offset any climate change associated with elevated greenhouse gases." Though refuted by the IPCC, the report was very influential in influencing the Bush Sr. Administration's climate change policy. The Marshall Institute has since published numerous reports downplaying the severity of global climate change. Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine The Marshall Institute co-sponsored with the OISM a deceptive campaign -- known as the Petition Project -- to undermine and discredit the scientific authority of the IPCC and to oppose the Kyoto Protocol. Early in the spring of 1998, thousands of scientists around the country received a mass mailing urging them to sign a petition calling on the government to reject the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was accompanied by other pieces including an article formatted to mimic the journal of the National Academy of Sciences. Subsequent research revealed that the article had not been peer-reviewed, nor published, nor even accepted for publication in that journal and the Academy released a strong statement disclaiming any connection to this effort and reaffirming the reality of climate change. The Petition resurfaced in 2001. I don't take this "petition" at face value. The facts of climate change speak for themselves irrespective of what we may be sick of hearing or not. I urge you and other interested readers to read the the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and make up your own mind. http://www.ipcc.ch/ I also urge you and interested readers to read the Wikipedia article on scientific opinion on climate change: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change Listed and linked there are statements of 35 of the most prominent scientific organizations in the world that largely follow or endorse the IPCC position that, "An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system ... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." I also urge you and interested readers to read the Wikipedia article on climate change denial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial Last October I was fortunate to see CBC-TV's Fifth Estate excellent documentary on the climate change denial movement called, "The Denial Machine". For those who are interested the video is available at: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/ There is an excellent list of 16 web sites pertaining to the climate change denial movement http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/resources.html Text interviews of people in the film and if you have Windows Media player you can even watch the documentary and update online with streaming video. Decide for yourselves if you can trust the pronouncements, petitions, and disinformation produced by the climate change denial industry. Best wishes, Chris On 4-Jun-08, at 11:11 PM, Lois Codling wrote: > Hi Chris, > > I have taken a few days to answer your e-mail because, to tell the > truth, it made me really angry. Name-calling is not part of the > scientific method, as far as I am aware. Philosophically it is > called an "ad hominum" (to the man) argument, and is a logical > fallacy because it doesn't deal with the argument at all, but with > the man presenting the argument. Your e-mail apparently accused > 31,000 American scientists, including over 9000 Ph.D.'s, of every > politically incorrect view going. > > I guess I must be a consensus denier as well. I am heartily sick of > hearing that the consensus of scientists is that human-caused > climate change is undeniable. As the scientists who signed the > Petition Project state, "if there is a consensus among American > scientists, it is in opposition to the human-caused global warming > hypothesis rather than in favor of it." The large number of > scientists who signed clearly shows that there is no consensus in > the sense you are implying. They claim that the Project includes 15- > times more scientists than are seriously involved in the United > Nations IPPC process. See their website at: http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html > > I personally have no stake in, or connection to the Petition > Project. I have only recently learned of its existence. But I am > concerned for truth, and for freedom of speech. The path to truth > is by dealing with arguments, not by slinging mud. > > Lois Codling > > > > Christopher Majka wrote: >> Hi folks, >> >> There are a coterie of climate change deniers who (primarily for >> ideological, or more frequently financial, reasons) would like to >> keep alive the notion that anthropogenic climate change is still a >> "debatable" topic. It is interesting (and insightful) that many of >> these same people, organizations, public relations and ad firms, >> etc. that constitute the "denial industry" are (in one guise or >> another) the same as those who were employed by the tobacco >> industry for years making claims that there was no evidence that >> smoking was related to lung cancer. >> >> They have also borrowed tactics from the Holocaust denial movement, >> and those who deny the reality of evolution, trying to couch their >> arguments in pseudo-scientific terms and arguing that they are >> presenting another perspective on what is still a debatable issue. >> It is a dreadful and disgraceful tactic. >> >> For those who are interested there is an excellent discussion of >> this movement (with citations and link